Bob Jones buys Blue Flame Building

El Paso businessman Bob Jones hopes to spur Downtown redevelopment by putting office workers and students in two prominent and vacant Downtown office buildings, which Jones recently purchased for more than $2.6 million.

Jones last week completed the purchase of the 16-story Blue Flame
Building at 120 N. Stanton St., once the headquarters of El Paso
Natural Gas Co., which moved to Houston in 1996. And late last month,
he completed the purchase of the 12-story Mills Building at Oregon and
Mills streets, which had housed El Paso Electric Co. until early 1997.

"Downtown
El Paso can be the hub it once was and much more," Jones said in a
written statement. One key to doing that is to have more people
occupying office buildings there, he said.

He bought the Blue Flame
Building for $1.63 million from the El Paso Independent School
District, the district reported. The district used the building for
administrative offices for a time.

A deed of trust filed in the
county clerk's office indicates the Mills Building was bought for $1
million from Westcap Corp. That's a subsidiary of National Western Life
Insurance Co. of Austin.

Jones, who has been in El Paso more than
20 years, has seen various Downtown initiatives fail and decided
"somebody needs to step to the plate and start something," said Marc
Schwartz, a spokesman for the businessman. Jones was not available
Thursday for an interview.

Jones is best known as president and
chief executive officer of the National Center for Employment of the
Disabled. It's a not-for-profit corporation, which operates an East
Side factory with about 2,500 mostly disabled workers and operates a
psychiatric hospital. It also owns Access Administrators, a health-plan
administration company. Jones is also a managing partner of the East
Side's Physicians Hospital, which opened late last year.

The not-for-profit center is not involved in the building purchases, Schwartz said.

Jones'
background includes operating businesses involved in real estate
development. He was a consultant for Franklin Land and Resources Inc.,
a former subsidiary of El Paso Electric, which renovated the Camino
Real Hotel and Cortez Building, Schwartz said.

Paul Dipp, a
partner in Plaza Properties, which owns the historic Plaza Hotel
building across the street from the Mills Building, said, "We're very
excited about him being involved (in Downtown) because he's an
experienced real-estate developer (and) a very significant force in the
community."

Jones' plans for the Mills and Blue Flame buildings could make it easier for Plaza Properties to attract a developer to refurbish the 18-story hotel building, Dipp said.

Michael
Breitinger, executive director of the Central Business Association,
said, "Any occupancy (of vacant buildings) brings energy Downtown,
whether employees or students. It can only serve to help Downtown."

Plans
for the Mills Building call for locating a performing arts and science
school for middle- and high-school students there. Jones asked Iris
Burnham to start the school. She is founder and superintendent of the
private School for Educational Enrichment and the public Burnham Wood
Charter School, located on the same West Side campus.

"A school
would generate interest and population in an area that hasn't had
that," Burnham said. "He (Jones) sees the connectivity necessary to
make the (Downtown) community vibrant and come alive."

The school
could have as many as 400 students and "when you bring children, their
parents will follow to see performances and go to open houses," Burnham
said.

The school, which would operate as a not-for-profit organization, is targeted for a 2005 opening, Burnham said.

Plans
also call for eventually having dormitories in the school to bring
students in from Mexico and other parts of this region, she said.

Jones plans to locate at least 300 employees of Access Administrators, the health-plan administration company, in the Blue Flame Building and expects to get other tenants, Schwartz said.

Remodeling will be done on both buildings, Schwartz said.

El Paso Renaissance Blue Flame
LP and El Paso Renaissance Mills LP are limited partnerships formed by
Jones to purchase the buildings. Those operate under Sahara
Development, a company Jones recently started to handle the newly
purchased buildings and other holdings, Schwartz said.

The buildings

•
The Mills Building, 303 N. Oregon: A creation of Gen. Anson Mills and
built by noted El Paso architect Henry C. Trost in stages from 1911 to
1915. Erected when El Paso was a city of 15,000, the 12-story building
dominated the Downtown landscape. It's been vacant since early 1997,
when El Paso Electric Co. moved out.

• Blue Flame
Building, 120 N. Stanton: Built in 1953 by prolific El Paso contractor
Robert E. McKee. The 16-story building for years was headquarters for
El Paso Natural Gas Co. The company in 1996 donated it to the El Paso
Independent School District, which used it for administrative offices
for a time. The building's name comes from the 21-foot illuminated
flame on its roof.Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com, 546-6421.Photo
Caption: The Mills Building, at Mills and Oregon streets Downtown, was
completed in 1915 and designed by noted El Paso architect Henry C.
Trost. New owner Bob Jones plans to
house a fine arts middle school and high school in the building, which
is near the El Paso Museum of Art and the Plaza Theatre.

05/12/2006Bob Jones,
the former president and chief operating officer of El Paso's National
Center for Employment of the Disabled, sold his three Downtown
buildings Thursday.

Transactions recorded at the El Paso County clerk's office show that the companies Jones controls sold the Blue Flame Building, the Mills Building and the Luther Building, which he bought in 2004 for about $3 million.